Our View: Tourism's too important to have 'interim' leader

Wednesday

May 9, 2018 at 8:01 PM

This is National Tourism Week. Unfortunately for Springfield, what should be a week to celebrate tourism's value to our local economy has been overshadowed by the upheaval in the Springfield Convention and Visitors Bureau.

The outlook was much rosier last Tuesday, when the City Council approved Scott Dahl to be the new SCVB director. There seemed to be genuine excitement for his appointment, as Dahl has worked for a lodging industry trade association and was intimately familiar with how the SCVB should work. He would have arrived armed with the contacts and know-how needed to effectively lead the department. But Dahl resigned two days after his approval, citing a “personal matter” in his resignation letter.

The SCVB is left for the second time this year without a permanent director; Gina Gemberling left the post in January when she accepted a job in Little Rock, Arkansas. Mayor Jim Langfelder has appointed Janet Kirby, the former director of Benedictine University’s Springfield campus, as the acting Springfield Convention and Visitors Bureau director, starting in mid-June at an annual salary of about $100,000.

Kirby has an impressive resume and educational credentials: Besides her various positions with Benedictine University, she has worked for the Illinois Comprehensive Health Insurance Plan, Illinois Industrial Commission and the Illinois Department of Insurance. She has a doctorate in organization development. Her experience should be helpful in acting on one of Langfelder’s priorities for the SCVB, which is to assemble an advisory council to weigh in on requests for the lodging tax dollars the city annually doles out.

But she does not have tourism, marketing or sales experience — key traits we would expect a successful SCVB director to possess. And while Langfelder’s confidence in her ability to bring people together and lead a staff is reassuring, the question is whether her background would translate into success in luring more tourists to Springfield.

City code allows a department director to serve in an acting capacity for up to a year without approval of the council. Langfelder said he chose to appoint Kirby on an interim basis because of next April’s mayoral election.

We applaud Langfelder for acknowledging there could be an administration change by this time next year. But his reasoning would make sense if this were January and the election was three months away. It’s May, and there are 11 months until the election. There is no reason to wait a year to get a permanent director in place for a job that's critical to the city’s economic health.

Tourism should be a linchpin of the city’s strategy for getting more money into its coffers. The SCVB’s website estimates tourism's annual impact at more than $388 million for the Springfield area and Sangamon County. That amount could probably be higher if a dynamic SCVB director is at the bureau's helm. The Abraham Lincoln attractions alone would make most other cities drool with what that could do for getting out-of-towners into their hotels, restaurants and shops. Add in that Springfield is the state capital and home to the Illinois State Fair, along with other attractions like the Dana-Thomas House and several museums, and we should be drawing in tourists left and right.

Interim should be for a few months, someone to hold down the fort while the right person is found (or for Kirby, or any other interim, to prove they are that person.) We hope aldermen will join us in encouraging the mayor to appoint as soon as possible a permanent SCVB director. They also should consider changing how long a director can serve on an interim basis without council approval.

In this case, tourism is too important for the city to have the unneeded uncertainty of a temporary leader.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.

Sections

Information

Original content available for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons license, except where noted.
The State Journal-Register ~ Street address: One Copley Plaza (corner of Ninth Street and Capitol Avenue), Springfield, ILMailing address: The State Journal-Register, P.O. Box 219, Springfield, IL 62705-0219 ~ Privacy Policy ~ Terms Of Service